Woensdag: duin-, strand- en zeedag
We woke up that morning at 6.57 with four telephones gently reminding us of our deal (the fifth had forgotten to turn his sound on). Adele and Huub were still sound asleep. I heard a few giggles from across the room and from the bed under mine. Nobody said a word, but as soon as Adele broke the silence, we answered with noises too. My Guns n’ Roses song ‘Sweet Child Of Mine’ could actually compete with Huub’s alarm, but he didn’t wake up for the first minute or so. We giggled some more when we noticed others did, probably wondering what the fuss was about. Until eventually, Huub mumbled: ‘Nobody can beat Adele’. We laughed and forgot that we had said we’d stay in bed half an hour longer.
The day was too lovely already to spend it lying down anyway. I opened the doors to the garden, where the Sun unintentionally greeted me. While breakfast was put on the three tables, I sat down still in pyjamas. Lucky us, today we’d explore the dunes, the beach and the sea. Our reader had told us we would have to do an experiment we would set up ourselves, somewhere on the island. Well that was going to be on the beach then. I didn’t know what I’d examine yet, but it would be on the beach. We had discussed it with our teachers the night before and they were okay with our proposal. I went for my long jeans today, but already knowing I’d take them off as soon as the water would be in reach. Long jeans are also good for climbing dunes with Dewberries.
The dewberries have thorns, so flip-flops were not such a good idea. Unfortunately I only thought of this after we had parked our bikes again, but you know, en door! The first stop was at the old dunes, where we made Huub tell us the name of all the plants present first. I had learned on Monday that Zilverschoon (Rozenfamilie) got its name because of the silver colour its leaves have on the bottom side. We saw them here too. Good, I thought, I start to recognise a few. Although to be honest, there was also still that worrying feeling about the test, every time Huub showed us a plant which turned out to be not on the list even! But then someone would say ‘staat niet op de kaart’ and someone else would jump in, making the sounds of the Lingo balls of that TV show.
The day before yesterday, Huub had already explained how you could tell the difference between old dunes and newer ones. (New) dunes are born when wind blows sand away from the sea. When they’re still ‘growing’, they appear higher and spikier than older dunes, which have already settled down again under influence of the weather. In between we had spotted a lake, which originated as the low place in between dunes, that was filled with groundwater (and fresh water flows in here in the form of rain). The young dunes are less acidic, because the material comes fresh from the sea. The older dunes, which have had more rain washing the chalk away, is more acidic. We tested this, of course, and came to the same conclusion as the theory.
We also made records of plant growth in percentages, for the species growing in our marked areas (for both types of dunes, one square metre on the south side and one on the north). This, to find out what typical sort of landscapes can be found in these circumstances. But besides the assignments, there was also enjoyment of the environment, in detail even. We were like our own students: still able to have that sense of wonder. We saw the rare Parnassia, real Duinriet, (Noordse) Helm and Buntgras. I also found a Grasshopper (not on the list) and a Rugstreeppad (on the list)! We ate from the dewberries, which some had only tried for the first time and Edwin and Sjors found dried-up fox poo. Boys will be boys and when they saw little bones in it, they decided to take it apart later.
We were done before the other group and so we had a little moment of evaluation, before we finally went to the beach. Clothes were taken off, but there was work to do first. Although the project by choice had to be done solo at first, the group of us had asked to examine the same thing, so we could compare results. We took a closer look at what the sea brings to shore on the different tide lines. Camera’s in hand, we walked in a line from the water back to the dunes, marking areas at the low tide line, the high tide one, the spring tide and we even looked for signs of a storm tide. Looking for shells; pro style. Then there was one more assignment which brought out the hunters in the men and some woman…
We had two big nets, which we took into the ocean, to go fishing (old-school, but also like pros). Huub had said at least two of us where going to get wet, as we needed to see what creatures were living in these waters and I had said I’d go whatever the weather. This blue was my favourite colour blue though and the white sand gave it a Caribbean look. Since it was so nice, there were suddenly more volunteers and Edwin was unstoppable. There were Zeedruiven, Krabben, Garnalen and even Zeenaalden in our buckets. But they were too small to replace the Dutch meal planned for the evening, so I set them free. A few more jokes about the Zeepokken and the coldness of the water were shared between the men, but we had a lovely swim.
Apparently, Zeepokken have a penis that can grow 20cm long! Naturally, this bit of information wasn’t going to be forgotten anytime soon. While we were laughing and splashing, one of the girls whose last name is like the Krabben species, was collecting ‘family members’ for a photo opportunity. While most of the group wanted to cycle back already, the few of us stayed behind this time, to dry off in the sun (some turning as red as Sebastian the crab). Miracles do happen (when you remember to put on sunscreen), as my forever white skin was turning a bit beige on this trip. Huub would remark on that later and it seemed like he knew me better than stargirl by now. Eventually we cycled back, half dressed, to find part of our group already working on our presentation.
We are all teachers, or we’re going to be. And I hadn’t realised that for some, it’s different (as in difficult) to speak in front of a group which is not your class of students. I reassured the members of my team that they’d do well. Later they returned the favour when we were studying those plant names again. We had decided not to go to the beach this night, as the exam would already be the day after and going over the list, there were many names I felt I read for the first time. There was also a growing amount of species I could recognise and we played bird memory the rest of the evening, helping each other, and discussing the course in general with Wichard. We agreed we’d go out again tomorrow, celebrating that we all would’ve passed the test.
More pictures of Wednesday can be found on my flickr page.
